Articles: Obituary: Professor Peter Williams
David Ponsford

The
internationally renowned Bach scholar, harpsichordist and organist Professor
Peter Williams, who has died aged 78, was among the leading figures to
establish a rigorous scholarly approach to the field of historically informed
performance. Observing his musical legacy it is the sheer volume of his
writings, the quality and quantity of his musical performances, and the
influence he had as an educator that made him a truly outstanding musical figure
of our time. He was unique, combining skills as an organ historian, Bach
scholar, formidable harpsichordist and organist, distinguished organologist and
curator of historical instrument collections, indefatigable editor of both
Handel’s and Bach’s music, editor of book series and journals including The
Organ Yearbook, and an inspirational educator in performance practice studies.
In later years he was also a probing philosopher about music and musical
aesthetics, an acute and perceptive reviewer of new books and music volumes,
and a witty and merciless critic on the follies of the latest trends in musical
scholarship. But three subjects occupied him throughout his career  the organ,
J. S. Bach and performance practice.

Born in Wolverhampton, his most formative influences were studies
with Thurston Dart at St John’s College, Cambridge (1955-62), where Peter obtained
his BA, Mus.B and PhD degrees, and with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam. His
approach to research was instinctively informed by his empathy with the
instruments which he played, which led to the study of English Georgian organ
music and organs as the subject of his doctoral dissertation. In 1962, at the
remarkably young age of only 25, he was appointed lecturer in music at the
University of Edinburgh, later becoming Professor, Head of Department and Dean while still in
his forties. His specialist knowledge of period instruments, as both performer
and scholar, made him in 1968 the ideal person to be appointed Director of Edinburgh
University’s Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments. From 1985–97 he
was Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor at Duke University, North
Carolina, USA, a period during which he led an extremely active life lecturing
in the university, being University Organist, as well as giving public concerts
and teaching at summer schools. From 1996-2002 he was John Bird Professor at
Cardiff University, supervising PhD students and performing memorable concerts including
Bach’s Goldberg Variations. From 1996 to 2006 he served as Chairman of the British
Institute of Organ Studies, subsequently becoming President, and he was Patron
of the Cambridge Academy of Organ Studies from its inception in 2004.

It was first-hand
experience of performing on historical harpsichords and organs, particularly the
organs of Gottfried Silbermann, which inspired his writings. His first major
publication, The European Organ,
1450-1850 (1966), described the major European organ-building traditions
that were little understood in England at the time. Performing as
harpsichordist in concerts at St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, led him to write Figured Bass Accompaniment (1970), and
the installation of the Ahrend organ in the Reid Concert Hall was a catalyst
for the magnum opus that defined his international reputation in Bach scholarship:
the three-volume The Organ Music of J. S.
Bach, first published by Cambridge University Press in 1980, and re-thought
and revised in 2003. His mission to elevate organology and performance practice
to new critical levels is enshrined in The
Organ Yearbook, the annual journal which he edited from its inception in
1970. Further books followed: A New History of the Organ (1980); Bach: The Goldberg Variations (2001); The Organ in Western Culture 750–1250 (1993); The Chromatic Fourth through Four Centuries of Music (1998); J S Bach: A Life in Music (2007); The King of Instruments (2012). His editions of Handel’s and Bach’s keyboard music are full of
information concerning sources and performance practice considerations, which
inspire enthusiastic engagement and have led to a generation of more
enlightened and authoritative performances.

Peter’s writings on Bach, organological and
performance practice issues were all founded on historical sources, and
characterised by intellectual precision and literary conciseness. In reaction
to positivist musicology, emanating from Germany and the USA, he encouraged the
deconstruction of historical evidence in a way that opened our ears to
different possibilities, inspiring us to question the music instead of merely
accepting received wisdom. This often led more to the framing of questions
rather than defining answers regarding authenticity, chronology, context, style
and performance practices. He was the first to question, for example, the
accuracy of every single word in the title of the famous organ work ‘J. S.
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor for Organ’ (BWV 565), with which all
organists now concur. As a
teacher, his depth and breadth of knowledge and wealth of stimulating ideas,
combined with constructive criticism, kindness and generosity, made him
extremely effective in developing the skills of the next generation of scholars
and performers. He would frequently lecture on topics such as ‘What the notation
doesn’t tell us’, and he regretted that the subject of performance practice had
not been adopted more comprehensively in university music departments, with all
the subjects that emanate from it: source studies, notation, genre & style,
analysis, instrumental techniques, harmony, counterpoint, improvisation, rhythmic
conventions, ornamentation, organology, temperaments, historical contextual
studies, as well as the science and art of editing. Peter’s teaching philosophy
has been summed up as not so much ‘answering the questions’ but ‘questioning
the answers’.

In spite of a terrible accident to four of
his fingers, which entailed months of surgery, he maintained his annual ritual
of playing through all of Domenico Scarlatti’s 555 Sonatas. During the last few
months, while suffering the debilitating effects of acute myeloid leukaemia
that eventually took his life, he finished his book Bach  A Musical Biography,
to be published by Cambridge University Press in May this year. The final
proof-reading corrections (painstakingly assisted by his wife Rosemary) were
signed off within hours of his death. He passed away at 23.55 GMT on 20 March,
five minutes before the start of J. S. Bach’s birthday anniversary  although
in Leipzig it was an hour later. Bach extended a hand to Peter to join him, and
Peter accepted.

He leaves a widow, Rosemary, their two
sons, and two children with his first wife.

Professor Peter Williams, organist,
harpsichordist and Bach scholar; born 14 May 1937; died 20 March 2016.